Daryl wrote:I will apologise for offending you Fly, but have to point out that it was an effective example of jerking the chain.I've noticed in these forums that you enjoy outraging people and being offensive as a discussion gambit. Don't fall into the trap of believing that those more to the left are weak and ineffectual, we can be just as big a shits as those on the right, but usually try to be polite.I have met many US citizens whom I like and respect, but freely admit that, before retiring those whom I mainly met and negotiated with were usually the executive VPs of major US gun runners like Boe**g or Sik***ky. My impression of them is that to get to that rank they had to provide evidence of having eaten their first born. I'd come home and unload on the wife, so she got her prejudices from me, plus probably from watching Trump on TV.

Fair enough.

I would say that rising to the top of any large corporation in any country requires aggrssiveness. If you draw your conclusions about a foreign country based on interactions with highranking corporate executives, you are deceiving yourself.

Check out my most recent post on the Coblestones and follow the links.

Ask yourself a question. Why the homicide rate for young children is so extreme when young children are seldom murdered with guns?

If you examine more detailed data beyond gross numbers you will find that the age verses homicide rate curves for different countries are very similar.

I actually do favor some forms of gun control that Second Amendment purists do not.

One is a prohibition on carrying a firearm while intoxicated. Alaska has minimal gun regulation, but they treat carrying a loaded gun as equivalent to drink driving.

Another gun control law that I favor is legally defining firearms as deadly weapons. This would make it impossible for any scum sucking whore of an attorney to put his marijunna bootlegging client's marijunna bootlegging grandson on the witness stand and misrepresenting him as a "gun expert" to provide perjured testimony to support the Elmer Fudd defense.

Just FYI, I recently discovered a Guest Editorial in my local paper written by Judge Ladd Wiles' wife supporting universal background checks. Her rhetorical angle is that her 12 year old son recently took his Oregon Hunters Safety course so he could go hunting with his father. (If I was Judge Wiles, I would demand a DNA test to confirm paternity.) Assuming that Ms Marshall is not lying which is not a wise presumption, then Judge Wiles should be cognizant of the curriculum. He should therefore have been aware of the maximum potential projectile range of a shotgun. The claim that he was just firing "harmless birdshot" is BS. Aside from the fact that birdshot can be lethal out to about 40 to 50 meters (just ask the guy who was shot by VP Cheney) a shotgun is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. Morally, a shotgun is a lethal weapon out to the maximum potential range of about half a mile.

I get so obstinsnt in my argument against the presumption that guns cause crime because it blinds people to all other factors. Right now the British are fixated on "knife crime" because they have been experiencing many murders and assaults committed with knives. Their fixation on knives prevents them from considering other factors such as their declining arrest rates for murder. Great Britain is now experiencing the same decline in police effectiveness that the US experienced in the early 1960s. My prediction is that their homicide rate will double within half a decade.

I'll draw a very long bow, and point out a survival strategy used by our macropods (wallabies and kangaroos). We have a harsh and variable inland climate. Sometimes floods but more often droughts (which are getting worse).These marsupials have the ability to have one at foot, one in the pouch (joey), and one as an embryo. As conditions get worse they can chase the one at foot away, and pause the embryo's development (true), If things continue to worsen they actually evict the joey from the pouch, generally leaving it to die unless it is advanced and conditions improve. Bushmen know that this indicates desperate times.Now for wild speculation. Does this killing of children predominate among the less well off? If so could a link be made to the US having no standard Federal welfare and health net, along with a media that continually pushes the American dream of big houses and lots of money?

Daryl wrote:I'll draw a very long bow, and point out a survival strategy used by our macropods (wallabies and kangaroos). We have a harsh and variable inland climate. Sometimes floods but more often droughts (which are getting worse).These marsupials have the ability to have one at foot, one in the pouch (joey), and one as an embryo. As conditions get worse they can chase the one at foot away, and pause the embryo's development (true), If things continue to worsen they actually evict the joey from the pouch, generally leaving it to die unless it is advanced and conditions improve. Bushmen know that this indicates desperate times.Now for wild speculation. Does this killing of children predominate among the less well off? If so could a link be made to the US having no standard Federal welfare and health net, along with a media that continually pushes the American dream of big houses and lots of money?

Of course you couch your point in anti-American rhetoric, but you are recognizing the problem.

Infanticide and child homicides are FAR more common in the African-American community than among whites or Asians. Native Americans have similar rates of infanticide. The differential used to be about 7:1 but has declined to about 4:1. It is theorized that welfare reform to remove the incentive for out of wedlock birth has raised the average age of first birth for AA women. The result is a more secure environment for children even if the more mature mothers are not married.

Homicide offender rates for young AA males has also declined massively. My theory is that they are no longer engaged in such intense competition for access to women. ( Reminds me of a line from the movie THE HURT LOCKER. one of the grunts crudely asserts that the Afghanistan war was all about pussy! He was right)

Another factor is traumatic brain injury. For every child that has been beaten, bludgeoned and strangled to death, there must be 100 who have survived the abuse. These survivors have neurological scars as well as physical scars. This puts them at risk of committing murder later in life.